Writing Competition Runner Up: Robyn Curtis

Through The Wood

Don't fear this wood

though its thin growth shivers your skin;

these mists and whispers,

this slightness is your own voice;

 

it doesn't matter

what shape, what leaning, each leaf, tree

what weeping, what bright blazing -

each has his own mould;

 

once you too were floating spores

settling on the skin of ripe fruits

like a balm or an irritation,

a bloom or a pallid woe;

 

briar can cling, entwine with runners

but puts her own roots in the soil;

a seed falling on good ground doesn't need a gardener.

 

***

 

so take wing with the linnets in the evening;

settle on a branch

fly off

tap tap the earth where you will

perch on the shoulder of another

they will be pleased to hold your weight a while.

 

And if there's bleeding from thorn and bramble

walk right through

like a dreamer

it's only pain leaving -

 

only listen to your forest sounds,

your special friends trust

that your bird-tongue

speaks your truth.

 

This poem came through several incarnations – I knew I wanted to write about a transformative process and that it had to be in nature.

I also wanted a mythological feel and was thinking of Persephone – but it didn’t really come to life until I put my own self into it. I also wanted it to be a kind of help, a teaching, that it is OK to go into the darkness when you have to. Resisting is not going to get you through to the other side. And the other side is more of a self not tossed around by the needs and wishes of others, but a self who can know pain, be OK that it hurts but also know you can be as light as a bird once you know that you are really free in your soul. Sounds a tall order! But I find the more I am in nature, the more I am helped to see the way through difficulty – not by avoiding but by being part of our world in all its pain and glory.

It's really just about becoming oneself, I suppose – sounds easy! But for many of us it is far from easy. It’s worth the walk in the woods though – there is so much to learn. Autumn's my favourite time of year, September, colouring up and ripening and the air moving. It’s been a hard summer, grief coming unexpectedly in the middle of holidays. So I welcome Autumn even more than usual. The house martins have flown off leaving a strange quiet round the house. Harvests are in and the fields and hills losing their August gold as we all start to think about preparing for winter in a slightly leaky house. It’s gathering time and a good healing to collect wood, light fires, share some cosiness with our loved ones.

And out with the notebook and wait to see what comes along. 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my poem and thoughts on WildWords and, as Winter moves in, I hope you've all had a fruitful Autumn. 

On Samhain

      Since men wrenched back the clocks, twilight catches me unawares.

The night steals in stealthily, and lands fast. Tonight will be imbued with magic. Samhain- the turning of the year. The going into the dark. I watch through the office window, as the soft light casts long shadows, and fades. Like powder cast into water, dissolving, tinged with melancholy.  And strangeness.

      Hauling on my rucksack, and tucking trousers into socks, I go out into the sharp air. I smell wood-smoke. A chill fog moves in. The twilight hangs like a fine veil between the worlds. I think about ghosts. Of my wonderful Grandmother, not long gone. I want to be home before I am encased in darkness, and the army of witchy creatures from all history, swoop down at me.

      I climb on to the bike, and ride for home.  I turn on the lights, but the beam only sharpens the fog, and bounces back to me. Fiery-copper autumn trees are half-seen. Mistaken and morphed. They recede from my eye, like boats sailing away into the mist. The silent turning world.

      Now you see things. Now you don’t. Now you see things. Now you don’t.

      Descending the hill, my hands tighten on the handlebars. My Grandmother flashes into my mind. She imprints herself upon me. Her hands snap into position where mine should be. ‘Off we go then’ she says, in the spirit of adventure. And my heart flips over. Tears swell to my eyes silently, softly, achingly.

      I can’t find her at all in the outside world, but she sometimes takes up residence in my body like this. I am not consumed by grief. I am disoriented by it. It is her absolute presence and absolute absence that confounds me. She is so clear, but when I reach out, I put my hand through clouds.

      Now I see her. Now I don’t. Now I hear her. Now I don’t.

      Flying down the mountain to the plain, I see it from far away. The mute, scarlet, swinging blink, of an ambulance light cutting through the fog.

     I freewheel alongside the empty country airfield. Where the airfield ends and a field of maize begins, a helicopter sits like a resting dragonfly, limp winged, alongside the ambulance. There is the jagged remains of crashed glider too, glowing white in the dark. I guess that it came down too steeply, before the runway. Its face is shattered into a thousand pieces across the shorn grass ground.

      A group of silent, uniformed men are standing, quietly, head bowed, as if round a grave.  They shelter a still, prone form from view. A tableau. They don’t move for a long time.

      I bring my bike to a halt, somehow inside the drama. Alone on the deserted road I peer at the scene through the half-light. The smell of newly-turned harvest soil in my nostrils. No one moves. No one looks over. The utter silence roars. 

      It’s hard to get a grip of what’s happening. Slowly, piecing the half-seen together, I realise that the unremitting flashing light of the ambulance is pacing out a death scene. The uniformed men, bearing the sad disappointment of how life turns out in the end, move medical equipment away.  There is nothing more to be done.

      My grandmother’s voice chortles in my ear ‘Well, well, well’. And that small, sharp intake of breath that she used to do, escapes my lungs.

      The men perfunctorily turn a blanket out to cover what they guard. They carry it to the helicopter, its weight causing their gait to roll.  I know there is a person under there.

      My Grandmother’s head, (or possibly it’s my head?), shakes slowly in disbelief. Hers was a proper death at almost 94, not like this young thing, gone at perhaps a quarter of that.

      Now you see me. Now you don’t. Now you’re here. Now you’re not.

      The utter silence roars.

      I am lost in other bodies, swathed in death. And all I want to do now is to fly from it. Shake them all off. Turn on the silenced siren to blast through the fog.  That something might reach me.

      Don’t let the light fade. Don’t let the light fade.

      On I pedal. I go fast, fast. In order to jerk myself awake. I want to come back from between the worlds. I try to contact the fall of my feet on the pedals, and my breath. I latch on to beacons of colour. I drink in the amber and gold-sparking chrysanthemums, that wait outside houses. They will be placed on graves, on tomorrow’s Day Of The Dead. My eyes can’t get enough of the glittering citron poplar trees, and the popping ruby berries strung along the road.  

      And when I arrive home I grasp too the bubbling laughter of my son, and the scratch of the pouncing kitten, to bring me back to the land of the living.

      In the evening, at official celebrations of All Hallows, I am delighted to be only with those who still breathe. There is the pulsing, crackling fire. There is sharp cold-slap on my face as I surface from the bobbing bucket, a scarlet apple clenched between teeth, juice sour in my mouth.

     The dead are absent and life blazes. Hypnotised by the flames, I hear, in their dancing flicker, these words-

 Live fiercely, while you can.

Hold those you love very tight.

Don’t waste a second on discord.

Set a blaze in your heart.

Because one day, too soon,

A veil will be thrown between you and them,

And you will be gone into darkness. 

Summer Solstice Writing Competition Winner: Alice Penfold

Alice Penfold. Winner of the Wild Words Summer Solstice Writing Competition 2016

I am delighted to have won the summer Wild Words writing competition!

I have always loved creative writing, particularly thinking about how to write different perspectives and how the same characters or settings can be seen in such different ways, depending on the subjectivity of the viewer. In addition, the power that words have to be interpreted in multiple ways has always been at the heart of my writing.

It was whilst reflecting on the impact of homonyms in writing that I was inspired to write ‘Leaves’, a piece drawing on its meaning as both a noun and a verb. I wanted to write an abstract piece reflecting the challenges that change and leaving things behind can bring.

To create my story, I combined my love of word play with my passion for writing in the natural environment.

For me, nature and in particular, a keen and active observation of the world around us – its colours, its details, its changes – can provide the basis of such a range of writing.

Robert Frost’s poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’, has always been a favourite of mine, and I wanted to draw out its ambiguity as both a poem of hope and uncertainty in my writing today.

I took the poem and some blank paper to my local park, to observe the falling leaves in detail and consider the metaphorical implications that I could draw on and describe.

I am feeling even more re-inspired to create further stories – and to frequent more parks with nothing but an inspirational poem and blank sheet.

A Training Guide For Writing Wild

A student told me the other day that the thought of going outdoors to write terrified her.

In response to our conversation, I jotted down a few ideas which I hope will support you to just get out there. Take them with a pinch of salt  :-) 

-If the computer or television is more familiar to you than the world outside your front door, acclimatise slowly.

Start by venturing out into your garden (assuming you have one), then take on your local park. After that you should feel confident to go further…

-Get familiar with darkness.

Try lying in a dark room for twenty minutes, without falling asleep. You could also put on a blindfold, and feel your way around a room, or garden. Notice how the senses other than sight will come to your aid. See that your fears are bigger then the reality.

-Practice with texture under your feet and hands.

Exchange carpets and varnished floorboards for barefoot scurrying across your pebbled drive.  Swap flat white walls for touching brick and stone. Touch plants (carefully) that you usually consider too spiky.

-Consider going ‘off-line’.

Leaving the phone and Wi Fi behind is the new trend, have you heard? To really go into the unknown means to rely on your own resources, rather than those of your mother/partner/friend/therapist at the other end of the line. Face the reality that where you’re going there may not be a phone signal anyway. To prepare for this, turn your phone off for ten minutes, and see how it feels. Then progress to twenty minutes. Go up incrementally from there. When you can do three hours -the length of the writing of the first draft of your epic poem- you’re ready.

-Decide where to go.

You want to go into unknown territory. It will give you the sharpness of attention that’s conducive to vivid writing. But you don’t want to go anywhere that will frighten you too much, or where you place yourself in danger. A scared writer just freezes up, that is not creative.

-Make your destination information available on a need-to-know basis only. 

Threaten teenagers with loss of privileges if they contact or come looking for you in anything other than a REAL emergency (borrowing money/the car, trips to the supermarket for Nuttela etc… are not classed as real emergencies).

Finally. Remember. You deserve some time for you. Take it. Without apologies or excuses.

The Weekly Prompt

Put the six encouragements above into action :-)

The Hole In The Wall

When we write we set up a world in which the reader views our story through a series of frames.

Writing is an on-going process of choosing what places, people, objects, and information to withhold or reveal, and in what detail. We need to make these choices according to the effect we hope to achieve. Do we want to build tension, raise drama, or release laughter?

It’s not unlike a series of film shots. In one frame a man walks down a dark street alone. In the next the mugger is there, arm round his neck, tugging at the bag. Surprised, shocked? I hope so. The effect is created by bringing something from outside the frame, in, unexpectedly.

Thinking about frames reminded me that one of the principles of Japanese garden design, is called ‘shakkei’ which literally means ‘borrowed scenery’.  

Here, a frame of trees or fencing, or perhaps a hole made in a wall, is used to capture an element from outside the garden that is poignant, or emotive, and make it part of the composition.

When I think of this idea, I always think of the maze that is the South Devon lanes. The hedges on either side of the small roads are six feet high. I drive along, seeing nothing except the road, until, quite suddenly, there’s a gate. The view opens up and I’m both flying free and finding my feet simultaneously. Open fields stretching to the sea, and endless sky. Breath-taking.

In the spirit of shakkei, I went for a walk yesterday.  

Going up the hill, and round the corner I was immediately aware of what was hidden and then gradually revealed. The first frame was a square of green wire in a fence. Inside it, the far mountains. The wood of a child’s swing created a moving frame, the view ever-altering. There were also caravan windows, the scratched Perspex distorting the sunlight and abstracting the view.  And then finally, and most wonderfully, in an upstanding slab of concrete, a small round hole revealed the pink glow of the sky, so ethereal in contrast with the hard material that enabled it.

I see now there’s a reason that galleries frame paintings. Things just look better through a frame.

The Weekly Prompt

This week, borrow some scenery, and create your own shakkei. Go for a walk outside and look for natural frames. Alternatively, construct a simple frame and take it outside with you.

When you notice a natural frame, or actively frame something- what does it bring to your experience of the environment? What effect does it have on the reader to describe that view in words? Choose different frames, and notice how your choices about what you emphasise, and what you leave out, change the story you tell.

First published June 7th 2013

Inspired By Nature: Sue Johnson

My work and the natural world are closely linked. I am fortunate to have lexical-gustatory synaesthesia where I interpret some words and names as a specific taste.

For instance, ‘world’ tastes of pink blancmange, ‘feather’ tastes of whipped cream and ‘thunder’ tastes of thick porridge. These sensations never change and can’t be switched off!

Since 1st January 2013, I’ve written a poem a day every day. I discovered that, even on days when time was a problem, I could always find a few minutes to scribble the draft of a poem in my notebook – usually sitting in a car park and watching the clouds or focusing on a bird or a tree. Some of these poems have gone on to be published in small press magazines – often with minimal alteration. Others have been developed into longer poems or they’ve formed the nucleus of a short story or a scene from a novel.

A friend of mine keeps a nature journal which includes photographs, pressed flowers, sketches, feathers, leaves and short poems. It occurs to me that this would be a brilliant idea for developing a series of story boards for a short story collection.

Obviously, not all my poems ‘work.’ This doesn’t matter. I have great fun recycling them.

If you fancy trying this, it involves scissors and glue and you can create more than one version. Print off a copy of a poem that hasn’t worked. Cut it up. Add six new words, a colour and a sound. Reposition the words. Play around with them until you’ve got something you’re happy with then glue them in place.

At the end of his life, the artist Picasso said he regretted not playing more. I’m determined not to let this happen to me.

If I do get stuck with a writing project I find that a walk amongst trees or by water helps me to sort the problem.  I’m also lucky to have a summerhouse in the garden where I hear blackbirds on the roof and the scent of lavender and honeysuckle drifts in through the open door.

Nature is playful. Look at the way the clouds move. Look at the common names for wild flowers – what could you do with ‘enchanter’s nightshade’, ‘fox and cubs’ and lady’s smocks?

Listen to the sound of the wind and the different birdsongs.

For a long time now, I’ve looked on the words I create as being like a seed bank. They will yield a harvest when the time is right.  

www.writers-toolkit.co.uk

Movement and Rhythm

In ‘The Poetic Principle’, Edgar Allen Poe says,

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty.

Poets out there will probably feel comfortable with that definition. Prose writers perhaps less so. But the line between poetry and prose is a blurred one, and those of us who write prose would also do well to embrace it.

Virginia Woolf describes how,

A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it ... 

Our job then is to transfer that life, movement, and rhythm into words on a page, that others may know it.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, in his journal, presents us with a fine example of how it reads when you do it well. This is his description of the movement and rhythm of a wave.

Aug. 13 — Heavy seas: we walked along the sea wall to the Kennaway Tunnel to watch them. The wave breaks in this order — the crest of the barrel 'doubling' (that, a boatman said, is the word in use) is broken into a bush of foam, which, if you search it, is a lace and tangle of jumping sprays; then breaking down these grow to a sort of shaggy quilt tumbling up the beach; thirdly this unfolds into a sheet of clear foam and running forward it leaves and laps the wave reaches its greatest height upon the shore and at the same time its greatest clearness and simplicity; after that, raking on the shingle and so on, it is forked and torn and, as it commonly has a pitch or lurch to one side besides its backdraught, these rents widen; they spread and mix and the water clears and escapes to the sea transparent and keeping in the end nothing of its white except in long dribble-bubble strings which trace its set and flow.

Wild words indeed.

Wild words have a broad range of expression, and vocabulary. The verbs are strong, and varied. They mostly stand alone.

When describing a person’s passage down a street, that person doesn’t just run, they canter, charge, and gallop. When describing their conversation, they don’t just talk, they squeak, they howl, and they rant. Strong verbs rarely need an adjective. Adjectives are used with great prudence.

As living, breathing creatures, Wild words are flexible and malleable. The wild storyteller plays with rhythm for strongest effect. A rhythm can be said to be a ‘regular recurrence or pattern in time’.

Wild words have rhythms, as varied as the gaits of the numerous wild creatures.

Rhythm can be achieved in many ways: including by choice of sentence length, by use of white space, by assonance, resonance and rhyme.

The basis of their rhythm is iambic, the di-DUM di-DUM di-DUM that spoken English has always moved to. The wild storyteller knows that when these rules of internal rhythm are broken without good reason, the result can be clotted prose, writing that does not flow.

Wild words play skilfully with listener and reader expectations, noting the effect that a change of rhythm has on those receiving the story. 

The Monthly Writing Prompt

Write about water: the sea, a lake, river, pond, or rain storm. Describe it, in poetry or prose, with precision. Look closely, and be curious. Can you reflect and heighten all its varying moods  through the use of rhythm in your words?